When the toy had once taken Jupiter in t_The Charm of Gardens

matrimony, he resolved for the honour of his Celestial Lady, that the

whole world should keep a Festival upon the day of his marriage, and so

invited all living creatures, Tag-Rag and Bob-Tail, to the solemnity of

his wedding. They all came in very good time, saving only the Tortoise.

Jupiter told him ’twas ill done to make the Company stay, and asked him,

“Why so late?” “Why truly,” says the Tortoise, “I was at home, at my own

House, my dearly beloved House,” and House is Home, let it be never so

Homely. Jupiter took it very ill at his hands, that he should think

himself better in a Ditch than in a Palace, and so he passed this

Judgment upon him: that since he would not be persuaded to come out of

his House upon that occasion, he should never stir abroad again from

that Day forward without his House upon his head.

* * * * *

This, as may be seen at once, is the Olympian aspect not only of the

house, but of the garden as well. We mortals do carry our Homes with us,

breathing a closer, less free air than the air of Olympus, when the

reigning monarch has merely to take a toy in the head to enter into a

state of matrimony. We, tortoise-like, are bound and tied by a thousand

pleasant associations to our plot of earth and our patch of stars.

Sooner than attend the ceremonies of the greatest, we linger by our

house and in our garden, so that though we may not boast with the great

world and say that we know “Dear old Jove,” or “that charming wife of

his, Juno,” still we know that we live on the slopes of Olympus, and

have a number of charming flowers for society.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

EVENING RED AND MORNING GREY

Your old-fashioned man with a care to his garden will look through the

quarrel of his window to spy weather signs. This quarrel, the

lozenge-pane of a window made criss-cross, shows in its narrow frame a

deal of Nature’s business, day and night. For your gardener it takes the

part of club window, weather glass and eye hole onto his world. Through

it day and night he reviews the sky and the trees, the wind, the moon

and the stars. When he rises betimes there’s the sky for him to read.

When he returns for his tea there in the pane is the sunset framed. When

he goes to bed the moon rides past and the friendly stars twinkle.

No man is asked his opinion of the weather so much as the gardener,

except, may be, the shepherd; both men having, as it were, a

Professorship in weather given to them by the Public. It is they who

have given rise to, or even, perhaps, invented the rhymes by which they

go.

Evening red and morning grey,

Send the traveller on his way;

But evening grey and morning red,

Send the traveller wet to bed.

There is a verse full of ripe experience. The evening sun glows red

through the lozenge-panes and into the cottage, lights up with sparks of

crimson fire the silver lustre ornaments, makes the furniture shine

again, gives the brass candlesticks a finger lick of fire, shines ruddy

on the tablecloth, and flashes back a friendly scarlet message from the

square of looking-glass. On the deep window ledge stand a row of ruddled

flower pots in which fine geraniums grow, behind them a tidy muslin

curtain stretches across the window on a tape, on the sides of the

window are hung a photograph or two, an almanac, and a picture cut from

a seed catalogue, above hangs a canary in a small cage. Only the

narrowest slip of window is clear, not more than one clear pane, and it

is through this that the evening sun streams into the cottage room. In

the morning when our friend rises, if he finds the room flooded with a

clear grey light, a light matching the silver lustre jugs, then he

quotes his verse, to be sure, and passing his neighbour says, “A fine

day, to-day.”

A rainbow in the morning

Is the shepherd’s warning

But a rainbow at night

Is the shepherd’s delight.

That sign is for the shepherd and the traveller by night, since no

ordinary being is expected to watch for rainbows by night to the

detriment of his night’s rest and his morning temper. But the shepherd

must keep a keen eye to such signs, and marks, day and night, all the

little movements of Nature, to learn her whims. As for instance, the

signs of bad weather to come:

That swallows will fly low and swiftly when the upper air is

charged with moisture for then insects fly low also.

That the cricket will sing sharply.

This last, of course, in wet countries, for in dry places, as in meadows

under southern mountains, there is a perfect orchestra of rasping

crickets in the grass. But in the north, on the most silent and golden

days, they say that the chirrup of a cricket foretells rain. Just as

they say:

As hedgehogs do foresee evening storms

So wise men are for fortune still prepared.

This they say, because the story runs that a hedgehog builds a nest with

the opening made to face the mildest quarter thereabout, and the back to

the most prevalent wind.

Again, and this a sign everybody knows:

That distant hills look near.

As indeed they do before rain, and many times one hears—“such a place is

too clear to-day”—or, “One can see such a land much too well,” and this

means near rain.

Like the swallows so do rooks change their flight before rain, and so,

also, do plover, for it is noticed:

That rooks will glide low on the wind, and drop quickly. And

plover fly in shape almost as a kite and will not rise high, one

or two of the flock being posted sentinels at the tail of the

kite formation.

Then, if the shepherd is near to a dew-pit, or any water meadow, or

passing by a roadside ditch he will notice:

That toads will walk out across the road. And frogs will change

colour before a storm, losing their bright green and turning to

a dun brown.

To all of these signs with their significance of coming rain your

shepherd will give a proper prominence in his mind, marking one, and

then searching for another until he is certain. His first clue on any

hilly ground is:

That sheep will not wander into the uplands but keep browsing in

the plain.

Having taken note of this he turns to plants, particularly to his own

weather glass, the Scarlet Pimpernel, as he sees:

That the Pimpernel closes her eye. That the down will fly from

off the dandelion, the colts-foot, and from thistles though

there be no wind.

Of night signs there are many, but chiefly:

That glowworms shine very bright.

That the new moon with the old moon in her lap comes before

rain.

That if the rainbow comes at night

Then the rain is gone quite.

Near bur, far rain.

This of the bur, or halo, to be seen at times about the moon.

For a last thing they say:

On Candlemas Day if the sun shines clear,

The shepherd had rather see his wife on the bier.

* * * * *

Our friend, the weather-wise gardener,—and, by the way, there is the

unkind saying:

Weatherwise, foolish otherwise—

has several things in his neighbourhood to tell him of coming rain, as:

That heliotrope and marigold flowers close their petals.

That ducks will make a loud and insistent quacking.

That—so they say—the cat will sit by the fire and clean her

whiskers.

That the tables and chairs will creak.

That dogs will eat grass.

That moles will heave.

In the garden he too will observe the birds, more especially that pert

friend to all gardeners, the robin. For they say:

If the robin sings in the bush

Then the weather will be coarse;

But if the robin sings in the barn

Then the weather will be warm.

[Illustration: A DOVECOTE IN A SUSSEX GARDEN.]

I must confess that I have not found this come true of robins, any more

than I have found waterwag-tails coming on the lawn to be a harbinger of

rain, or that thrushes eat more snails than worms in the dry season. Of

this last I get enjoyment enough, for there is a stone in my garden to

which the fat thrushes come dragging snails. They give them a mighty

heave, and down come the snails, “crack” on the stone, until the shell

is burst asunder and the delicious morsel is down Master Thrush’s gullet

in the twinkling of an eye. The thrush is certainly my favourite garden

bird, both for his looks and his song, and the blackbird I like least,

for they are bundles of nerves, screaming away at the slightest

suggestion of danger. The robin is a fine impudent fellow and friendly

in a truly greedy way, following the smallest suggestion of digging with

an eye for a good dinner, so that if you are only pulling the earth up

in weeding you will have the brisk little gentleman at your elbow, head

cocked on one side, and an eye of the greatest intelligence sharply

fixed on you. Pigeons I regard as an absolute nuisance, their voices

sentimental to a degree, in this way quite at variance with their

selfish, greedy and destructive characters. So they say:

If the pigeons go a benting

Then the farmers lie lamenting.

Starlings are very handsome birds but as they live in congregations, or

like regiments, one can have no personal feeling for them, though I love

to watch them on winter evenings when they come in thousands from the

fields and fly to their roosting place, making the air rustle with the

quick beat of their wings.

The bullfinch is a gardener’s enemy, for he will strip the fruit buds

from a tree out of pure wantonness, and yet he is a brave bird and nice

to see about.

All the small birds give one joy though they be robbers or enemies to

young plants, or bee eaters like the blue-tit, or strawberry robbers, or

drainpipe chokers like the house-sparrows, or murderers of the summer

peace like the woodpecker with his quick insistent “tap, tap.”

In royal and fine gardens, of course, one must have two birds; the

peacock and the owl, for these two give all the air of romance needful,

though I have never myself regarded the peacock as a King of birds, for

he makes too much of a show of himself, and his wife is a humble

creature. I feel, rather, that he is a courtier strutting up and down

waiting the King’s pleasure; a place-seeker, one who will cheer the side

that pays. As for the owl, that dusky guardian of secrets, he is a far

more solid and trustworthy fellow than the gay peacock, and though he

snores in the daytime, his great round yellow eyes are open at the least

sound in his haunt.

This is far afield from the weather, so let us give the remaining saying

of birds that the gardener may notice.

November ice that bears a duck

Brings a winter of slush and muck.

That I hold to be very true.

There are still one or two rhymes that should be well noted, three of

the rain.

When it rains before seven

It will cease before eleven.

March dry, good rye

April wet, good wheat.

If the ash before the oak

Then we are in for a soak.

But if the oak before the ash

We shall get off with a splash.

Then they say:

Between twelve and two

You’ll see what the day will do.

And again:

Cut your thistles before St. John

You will have two to every one.

And,

The grass that grows in Janiveer

Grows no more all the year.

And also:

That flower seeds sown on Palm Sunday will come up double.

* * * * *

These are all very well, and what with one thing and another will come

true, at least as true as the rhyme that says:

A mackerel sky

Is very wet, or very dry.

Still it is really to the wind that the gardener looks most, and if he

have a weathercock in his garden (which with a sundial, a rain gauge,

and an outside thermometer he should always have) he will note each turn

of the wind. If he has no weathercock then he will read the wind by the

smoke of chimneys, or the turn of the leaves of trees.

And, after regarding the wind, he may remember this:

When it rains with the wind in the east,

It rains for twenty four hours at least.

And this also:

When the wind is in the south,

’Tis in the rain’s mouth;

When the wind is in the east

’Tis neither good for man nor beast.

This weather lore is naturally gleaned out of many years, some of the

sayings being of real antiquity, others, perhaps, newly coined, though I

fancy not. In spite of them you will find every gardener has a different

manner of reading the sky and the wind, some having it that mares-tails

in the sky come after great storms, others that they are the portent of

a gale. Some, if asked will reply to a question on the weather:

“With these frostises o’ nights, and the wind veered roun’ apint west,

and taking into consideration the time o’ year, and the bad

harvest”—then follows a long look into the heavens—“I don’t say but what

’er won’t rain, but then again, I dunno, perhaps come the breeze keeps

off, us mighten have quite a tidy drop.” This you are at liberty to

translate which way you choose, since the advice is generally followed

by a portentous wink, or, at least, some motion of an eyelid curiously

like it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GARDEN PROMISES

It is Winter, and when it is winter the earth is very secret, but it

lies like pie-crust promises waiting to be broken. A little graveyard of

the tombs of seeds and bulbs spreads before one’s eyes. Each tomb has a

nice headstone of white with the name of the buried life below written

upon it. The virtues of the buried are not written in so many words, but

their names suffice for that. In my imagination I see my graveyard like

this:

HERE LIES BURIED

ROSE COLOURED TULIP

WHO CAME ACROSS THE SEAS

FROM THE KINGDOM

HOLLAND

UNDER THIS EARTH

SHE

AND ONE HUNDRED OF HER SISTERS

ARE WAITING FOR THE SPRING

WHEN THEY WILL UNFOLD THEMSELVES

FROM THEIR LONG SLEEP AND ADORN

WITH THEIR PLEASANT FACES THE SOUTH

BORDER FACING THE STUDY WINDOW

That I see most clearly written over the spot where I tucked the hundred

and one beautiful sisters in their bed of rich brown earth, and I am

looking for the time when the graveyard shall begin to be green with the

shafts of their first leaves. Besides these, there are the headsticks to

the Carnations, but this patch of the graveyard is different since the

tufts of Carnation grass make long grey lines against the brown earth.

Somewhere, in each of these grey tufts, is hidden the beautiful germ of

life that is growing, growing all the time, and the wonderful chemical

process is at work there (for all the plants look so silent and quiet),

that is mixing colours and rejecting colours, and is secreting wax, and

preparing perfume. Of all moments in a garden this is to me the most

wonderful. No glory of colour or variety of shape; no pageant of ripe

Summer, or tender early day of Spring appeals to me quite in the way

this silent time does, when a thousand unseen forces are at work. I have

often wondered (being quite ignorant of the chemical side of this) what

happens to that drop of fresh colour the bee brings like a careless

artist flicking a brush. Sometimes in a Carnation of pure white, one

flower, or two, will show a crimson streak—a sport, one calls it. But

more curious still is the fringe edge of the Picotee. How, I have often

asked myself, does the colour edge find its way to its proper place? How

does the plant manage to produce just enough of that one colour to go

round each of its flowers? I have stood by a row of these plants that I

have just planted in some new bed, and wondered at the amazing industry

going on within them. They are fighting disease, supplying themselves

with proper nourishment, mixing colours, and building buds and stems. It

is a regular dockyard of a place except that there is no sound. I

imagine (quite wrongly, but merely because an instinct causes me to do

so) a lot of orderly forces like little drilled men hard at work in

green-grey suits. Those who work underground are not in green but are in

white, but should they go above the surface they would change colour

owing to contact with the light, and this is due to the presence of a

matter called chlorophyll in the cells which gives plants their green

colour.

The underground workers are hard at it always, getting water from the

ground, and in this water are gases and minerals dissolved. The workmen

send this up to those in the leaves. Those who work in the leaves are

taking in supplies of carbonic acid gas from the air, and the leaves

themselves are so formed as to get as much light as possible on one

surface. When the light meets with the carbonic acid gas in the leaves

starch is formed. This is distributed through the plant to the actual

builders.

You stand over the row of Carnations all silent, all still, and yet here

is this tremendous activity going on, building, distributing, selecting,

rejecting. A thousand workmen making a flower.

The two sets of workers, in the roots and leaves, the one sending up

water and nitrogenous matter, the other making starch, are manufacturing

albumenoids for more building material. And it is more easy to think of

such creatures at work since a plant, unlike an animal, has no stomach,

or heart, or bloodvessels, and its food is liquid and gaseous.

Now of these marvels the greatest is that of the existence of life in

the plant on exactly the same initial principles as the existence of

life in man. That is the substance known as the protoplasm. It is too

amazing for me, and too great a thing to be dealt with here, but, as I

look at my silent dockyard, there are these protoplasms, in the cells of

these plants, dividing into halves and, so to speak, nestling with fresh

cells in walls of cellulose.

Think of the work actually going on beneath our eyes in the one matter

of the starch factory in the plant, where the chlorophyll (the green

colouring matter) separates the carbon from the carbonic acid, returns

the oxygen to the air, and mingles the carbon and the oxygen and the

hydrogen in the water and so makes this starch.

All this goes on when we open our windows of a morning and look out over

the garden and see just a grey line of Carnations we planted over-night.

The workers at the roots who are so busily engaged in sending up water,

are also sending with it all those things the plant needs that they can

get from the earth. Thus the water may contain iron, nitrogen, sulphur,

and potash. All that goes from the roots to the leaves is called sap.

This, when it comes to the leaves and all parts of the plant exposed to

the light, transpires, and so keeps the plant cool.

The stem, on which the supreme work, the flower, will be born, is, in

the case of our Carnations, divided into nodes and internodes, the nodes

being those solid elbows one sees. It is towards the supreme work that

our eyes are turned. It is part, if not chief part, of the pleasure of

our vigil to look forward to the day when the first faint colour shows

in the bursting bud. It is for this moment that we wait and wear out the

chill of Winter. It is towards the idea of a resurrection that our

thoughts, perhaps unconsciously, are fixed, to the knowledge that our

garden is to be born again, fresh and new in colour, in warmth and

sunshine. The very secret workings going on before our eyes, all that

Heavenly workshop where none are ’prentices and all are master-hands,

where the bee, and the ant, and the unseen insect in the air, go about

their exact duties, give one, as Autumn declines into Winter and Winter

rouses into Spring, some vague conjecture of the mighty magic of the

growing world, where no particle of energy is ever wasted.

[Illustration: A NORTHAMPTONSHIRE GARDEN.]

Life in the Winter takes on this aspect of waiting wonderment. While the

rivers are in flood, and the fields are ruled with silver lines where

the ditches are full, and the Sun uses them for a mirror; while the

gulls are driven inland and follow the plough, and the starlings

congregate in the open fields, we prepare our pageant of flowers against

those days when the slumber of the earth is over, and the now purple

hedgerows are alive with tender green. St. Francis of Assisi impressed

the very sentiment on his friars, in bidding them make scented gardens

of flower-bearing herbs to remind them of Him who is called “The Lily of

the Valley,” and “The Flower of the World.”

So goes my workshop through the winter days, while a few pale ghosts of

late Roses linger on the trees, sighing doubtless to themselves, like

old gentlemen—“Ah, I remember this place before Autumn pulled down all

the green leaves, and long before all that ground was laid out for seed

plots.” And all the while my Roses are growing and, could one see into

the colour chambers of the trees, into those wonderful studios hidden in

the tiny cells, one would see these artists at work rivalling the blush

of morning, the flames of fire, the white soul of innocence, the crimson

of king’s robes, and the orange flush of sunset. There are men, I

suppose, who know to a certain extent how the secretion of these

wonderful colours is arranged; why this or that colour runs to flush a

petal to the edge, or stays to dye only the flower’s heart. But it will

ever be a marvel to me to see how these veins flow crimson, those hold

orange, and those again hold a rich yellow. The work that creates the

colour of a Pansy, that gives to the Sweet Peas those soft tints, that

shapes and colours the trumpet flower of the Convolvulus, and builds the

long horn of the sweet-scented Eglantine, gives one a joy to which few

joys are equal, and a feeling of security with the great unknown things

by which life is encompassed.

Looking again at the garden of promises, and thinking of it still as a

graveyard with headstones, I see one which is, to me, particularly

pleasant. It is by an old bush of lavender, the mother bush of my long

hedge; I read it to be written like this:

HERE LIES

IMPRISONED IN THIS GREY BUSH

THE SCENT OF

LAVENDER

IT IS RENOWNED FOR A SIMPLE PURITY

A SWEET FRAGRANCE AND A SUBTLE

STRENGTH IT IS THE ODOUR OF

THE DOMESTIC VIRTUES AND THE

SYMBOLIC PERFUME OF A QUIET LIFE

RAIN

SHALL WEEP OVER THIS BUSH

SUN

SHALL GIVE IT WARM KISSES

WIND

SHALL STIR THE TALL SPIKES

UNTIL SUCH TIME AS IS REQUIRED

WHEN IT SHALL FLOWER AND SO

YIELD TO US ITS SECRET

There stands the bush all neatly tied, its venerable head at the moment

covered with a powdering of fine snow, and round it the first sharp

spears of Crocus leaves show, and the fat buds of Snowdrops, and the

ready bud of the yellow Aconite. All the garden is waiting, the

Pea-sticks are prepared, the paths have been cleaned, and I am waiting

and watching the little things. The trees even now are whispering that

it will soon be Spring, for all they look from a distance like a

collection of dried and pressed roots sticking up in the air, how they

are drawn in purple ink against the sky; but one day my eyes will see a

faint haze over them as if a little mist hung about them and was caught

in the branches, and then they will change so quietly that it is

impossible to tell quite when they began to look like very delicate

green feathers, and then they will change so suddenly that it is a shock

to one’s eyes to find them in a full flush of sticky bud and leaf, and

one says in accents of delighted surprise, “Why, the trees are out!”

Not every one takes pleasure in a garden during the Winter time, many

regarding it as a chill and a desolate place in itself, and taking only

an interest in the green-houses and the Violet frames; and few would

find a pleasure in washing flower-pots by the dozen on a rainy day, and

in putting fresh ashes on the paths, and in banking up Celery. But to

the keen gardener every inch of work in his garden is full of interest,

he realises the daily value of each thing he does, he knows of that

great silent work that is going on so near him, and so enjoys even the

burnishing of a spade, the rolling of lawns, and loves, as I think every

one does, the surgical work of pruning the fruit trees.

Then, when the promise is fulfilled, and the world is full of green and

colour, the wondrous alchemy of the Winter months shows its result in

the glorious painting of the flowers of Spring and Summer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XII

GARDEN PATHS

You can get no symbol finer than a path, no symbol is more used. Of

necessity a path must begin somewhere and have a destination. Of

necessity it must cross certain country, overcome obstacles, or go round

them. By nature you come at new views from a path and so obtain fresh

suggestions. A path entails labour, and by labour ease. It must have a

purpose, and so must originate in an inspiration. And yet the man who

makes a path ignores, as a rule, the high importance of his task.

It is a peculiar thing that paths made across fields, and made by the

very people whose business it is to reach from point to point in the

shortest possible time, are never straight. Their very irregularities

reflect the nature of man more than the nature of the ground they cross.

So unmethodical is man by instinct that if he were to lay out a garden

in the same frame of mind in which he crosses a field, that garden would

abound in twisted, tortuous paths, beds of irregular shapes, spasmodic

arrangements of trees, flowers, shrubs and vegetables, a veritable

hotch-potch. To overcome that he imprisons the wanderings of his mind,

divides his garden into regular shapes, and drives his paths pell-mell

from point to point as straight as his eye and a line will allow him.

This planning of a garden is an absorbing joy. To come new to a fresh

place untouched by any other hand and to work your will on it gives one

all the delights of conquest, and the pleasant fatigue of a war in which

you are bound to win. You can make your own traditions, founding them

for future ages—as, for instance, you may so plant your trees as to

force one view on the attention. You can emulate Rome and carry your

paths straight and level. In fact, that little new world is yours to

conquer.

To me a winding path offers the more alluring prospect, just as it is

more pleasant to walk on a winding road where each turn opens out a

fresh vista, and the coming of every hidden corner is in the way of an

adventure. I have just made such a path.

To be precise my path is eighteen feet long and two feet and a quarter

wide. It curves twice, really in a sort of courteous bow in avoiding a

Standard Rose tree, and begins and ends in a little low step of Box;

this to prevent the cinders of which it is made from mingling with

gravel of the paths into which it runs.

I began it on a Monday. It is made through a Rose bed that was too wide

to work properly. At about nine in the morning the gardener and I stood

regarding the unconscious Rose-bed with much the same gravity as men

might regard a range of hills through which a tunnel was to be drilled.

I said, “This seems the best place to make a path through the bed.”

The gardener made a serpentine movement with his hand to indicate the

possible curve of the path and replied, after an interval: that such a

place seemed as good as any.

We then, with a certain lightening of heart after this tremendous

thought, walked into the bed and surveyed it. This tree would have to be

moved, and that one, and these half standards shifted. Good. It should

be done.

It seems that the earth requires a little ceremonial even when the

merest scratch is to be made on her surface. I am sure we wheeled a

barrow containing spades, a line, and sticks with some feeling of

processional pride. The gardener then, having come to a stop with the

barrow, spat, very solemnly on his hands. It appeared to be the exact

form of ritual required. In a few minutes we had pegged a way.

I suppose a spade is the first implement of peace ever made by human

kind. It is certainly the pleasantest to hold. A rake is a more

dandified affair, a hoe not so well-formed. The scythe and the sickle

have a store of poetry and legend about them, but the rake and the hoe

contain no romantic virtues. Although the plough is the recognised

implement of peace in symbolical language, it joins hands with war in

that same language—“turning their swords into ploughshares”—and so loses

much of its peaceful meaning, but the spade remains always the sword of

the man of peace, one weapon by which he conquers the ground and makes

the earth yield her fruits. For me the spade.

The gardener, having spat upon his hands regarded the earth and sky as

if to mark and measure the earth and the heavens, and them to witness

his first cut. The spade, lifted for a moment, drove deep into the

earth. The soil, pressed by the steel, turned. A new path was begun. How

long is it to last?

There are garden paths, so commenced, have made history in their day,

why not mine? Kings, Princes, Lords, Queens, Maids of Honour, spies and

honourable men have trodden garden paths, measuring their small length

and discussing everything in the states of Love or Country to come to

some decision. The Poppies Tarquin slew gave their message. The Pinks

that Michonis brought to Marie Antoinette grew by some garden path; that

very bunch of Pinks in which lay a note promising her safety, brought

her death more near. What comedies, what tragedies, vows made and

broken, kisses stolen and repented, have not had for platform just such

a path as mine.

At the first hint of broken soil a robin, pert and ready, took up a

position on a bare limb of Penzance Briar, and began to eye us merrily

just as if he, I and the garden were all out for a day’s worm hunting.

Said I, “Dick, we are out to make a garden path, incidentally to make

history.” For I had my idea of the “History of Paths” well at the back

of my mind.

The robin replied (or as good as replied), “If it’s history you’re

after, it’s insects I’m here for, so we’ll come at a bargain.”

Meanwhile the gardener turned another clod.

Said the robin, “I never saw any one so slow.”

Slow as we might have been we were quick enough in imagination. For one

thing there was the question of edging. Tiles, bricks, box, stones,

which was it to be?

Half-way down the trench we had made, just at the acute point of the

greater curve, the gardener propounded the question of the edging. He

leaned on his spade, and turning to me asked if I had thought to

something to edge the path with. Now my thoughts were far away from that

idea and were hovering like butterflies over a vision of the Path

Complete. I saw, for Springtime, a row of Daffodils nodding and yellow

in the breeze. For Summer I saw Carnations gleaming richly, and the

Roses all blooming. Overhead the driven sky hung out blue banners of

distress as if signalling for fine weather. Plumb to earth my thoughts

came.

“About something to edge with?”

Almost before I had time to speak, he continued. I had begun with the

word, “Box.”

Every one knows what it is to come on the rocks in the soil of a

gardener’s mind. It is, as a rule, some old idea taken deep root which

forms a rock of resistance. Sometimes it is a rock idea about taking

Geranium cuttings, sometimes an idea about the time for pruning fruit

trees or the method of pruning them, sometimes it concerns certain

plants which he refuses to allow will live in the garden and so lets

them die. One is never quite certain when or how the objection will

arise. I had sent out a feeler for Box and I struck a rock.

“Box!!” he said in a voice of awe, as if the gods overhearing would be

angry. “Where am I to get Box from? And if I was to get Box, Box don’t

grow so high,”—he held his hand a mustard seed height from the

ground—“not in ten years. It’s awkward stuff, Box, to deal with. In a

garden this size that needs an extra man—and plenty of work for a boy

too, when all these leaves is about—growing hedges of Box or what not is

not possible. Not that I have anything to say against Box, far from it.

No. It looks well in some places, but if you was to ask me, sir, I think

it’ud be the ruin of this Rosebed.”

Said the robin to me, “The man’s mad.”

I answered quickly, “It was merely a sudden idea of mine.”

He relapsed into silence for a moment. Then he said, “flints.”

I knew it was to be a battle. I hate flints. Nasty, ugly, tiresome

eyesores. Gardeners love flints just as many of them love Laurels and

Ivy.

[Illustration: A PATH IN A ROSE GARDEN.]

I said very rashly, “But where are we to get flints?”

Of course I should have known that he had a cartload of flints up his

sleeve. He scraped his boots, walked away, and returned with a jagged

thing like one petrified decayed tooth of a mammoth. This he thrust into

the ground, and then surveyed it with pride.

“That,” he said, “is something like.”

“Something like what?” said I.

“A double row of these,” he said, “with here and there one of a

different colour would never be equalled.”

I agreed with him sarcastically. “Never,” said I, “would they be

equalled for utter hideousness. Far be it from me,” I said, “to fill the

hearts of my neighbours with envy of this border.”

“You don’t care for them?”

“Chuck it at him,” said the robin.

“I wouldn’t be seen dead in a path bordered with flints,” I said.

More in sorrow than in anger he removed the offending flint, and we

resumed work. The last time we had used bricks for an edging they had

all cracked with the frost, so that idea was left alone. Not, of course,

that all bricks crack, but the bricks about here seem to be very soft.

I asked if we had any tiles.

He knew of some tiles, a lot of them, nearly buried in the earth and

covered with Moss. They were an old line running by the path inside the

wall by the paddock; the path by the rubbish heap.

“But,” he said, having the rout of the flints in his mind, “it would

take a man all day to dig them up, and scrape them and wash them, and

then he couldn’t say they would be any use when it was done. And in a

garden where an extra man——”

“I will do it myself.”

“Fight it out,” said the robin.

More or less in silence, and really in excellent tempers, we finished

the trench that was to receive the cinders and ashes.

I washed the tiles. There were exactly ninety of them required. I

started to wash them in the cold water of a stable bucket, and I

regarded each one as a thing of beauty as I did it. After having done

forty I began to think it would be a good thing to give prisoners to do

to teach them discipline. After seventy, I decided to recommend that

particular form of torture to some Chinese official. By the time I had

finished I felt that some medal should be struck to commemorate the

event.

The gardener, at the close of that day, looked at my heap of tiles.

I said, “I have finished them.”

He replied, “I was just coming to lend a hand.”

To which, as I was not going to let the sun go down upon my wrath, I

answered, “Thank you.”

I think an ash-heap is the most desolate object I know. The dreary

remains of burnt-out fires make a melancholy sight, but I remember that

as a child that corner of the garden where stood the heaps of ashes and

ancient rubbish was as the mines of Eldorado to me. Here, if one dug

deeply enough, one found pieces of broken pottery, in themselves equal,

by power of imagination, to any discovery of Roman remains. To the

whitened bones I found I gave names, building from them adventures more

lurid than those of Captain Kydd. To the ashes I gave gold and jewels,

delving as if in a mine, sifting, with childlike seriousness, the heap

of fire slack, and coming on some bright bit of glass that shone for me

like a kingly diamond, I held it to the light and renewed the ardour of

my soul in its gleaming rays. After all, are not pieces of broken glass

as beautiful as many jewels if they are self-discovered and lit by the

light of joy? That corner of the garden, hidden by shrubs, by

low-growing nut trees and shaded by ancient Elms, has been for me the

Forest of Arden, of Sherwood, the deeps of the Jungle, an ambush, a

hiding-place, a tree covered island, each in its turn absolutely

satisfying to my mind. The sun’s rays shooting down through the branches

have found me seated, dirty, dishevelled, but incomparably happy,—a King

with an ash heap for a throne.

To an ash heap, then, I repaired on the following day, there to gather

loads of cinders and slack for my garden path. Already in my mind the

Roses bloomed by the path side; the tiles, evenly set, were leaned

against by blue-eyed Violas; Carnations waved gorgeous heads at my feet.

My friend the robin was there betimes and took upon himself to sing a

little song to cheer me. After that, with his bright eyes glinting, he

hopped upon the bed and inspected my labours.

The gardener coming upon me glanced at the row of neatly placed tiles.

“I’m glad I thought o’ they,” he said.

“Hit him,” the robin chirruped.

“You think they look well?” said I.

“As soon as I thought of they tiles,” he answered, “I knew I’d a thought

of a grand thing.”

So he took all the idea to himself, and went on solemnly pounding down

the cinders with a heavy stone fastened onto a stick.

And now the path is finished, and curves smooth and sleek between the

Rose trees, and answers firmly to the tread. All day long I have been

planting cuttings of Violas alongside the path; and behind them are rows

of Carnations.

I wonder who will walk upon my path in a hundred years time, and if by

then they, whoever they be, will think our methods of gardening very

old-fashioned and odd. And I wonder if we shall seem at all quaint to

people who will come after us, and if our clothes will be regarded as

odd and wonderfully ugly.

Once, I remember, I saw into the past in such a vivid way that I still

feel as if I were living out of my date by living now. It was on the

occasion of some fête in the country which was to be held in some big

gardens. Certain ladies were presiding over an entertainment that set

out to represent a series of Eighteenth Century booths. The daughter of

the house where I was stopping had spent time, money, and taste in

getting very accurate and beautiful dresses of about 1745. They wore

these, powdered their hair, and placed patches on their cheeks, and

prepared baskets of lavender tied up in bundles to sell at the fair.

I saw them one morning start for the place where the fair was to be

held. They came into the garden all dressed and in white caps, and they

walked arm-in-arm down a path bordered with Pinks and overhung with

Roses, and the sun gleamed on their flowered gowns and on their powdered

hair. I could almost hear them say—“La, Mistress Barbara, but I protest

it is a fine morning.” There was nothing incongruous in sight, just

these walking flowers passing the banks of Roses, pink as their cheeks,

and the Pinks white as their powdered hair. I felt at my side for my

sword, and put up my hand to my neck to smooth the fall of my lace

ruffles, but, alas, nor sword nor lace was there.

In the ordering of paths such as I have written there are many ways, and

some are for paths all of grass, and some for tiles, and some for flags

of stone, some for gravel, and some for brick laid herring-bone ways.

Each has its proper and appointed place, as, for instance, that flags of

stone are proper by a balustrade where are also stone jars to hold

flowers and stone seats arranged. And brick, which of all the others I

most prefer, as it is more warm to look at and helps the garden by its

rich colour, is good in intimate small gardens as well as in big, and

gives a feeling of cosiness to old-fashioned borders, and is nice near

to the house, and is good to set tubs for trees on, or tubs filled with

gay flowers. Of grass paths, in that they are soft and inviting, I like

them well enough, but they are wet underfoot after rain and dew, and

need a deal of care and trimming; but in such cases as small set gardens

with queer-shaped beds and low Box borders, I mean bulb gardens, to be

afterwards used for carpet bedding or for a show of some one thing, as

Begonias, or Zinnias, or Carnations, they are without equal. They should

be kept very precious, and well free of weeds, otherwise their beauty is

gone and they have a lack-lustre air, very uncomfortable. As for gravel,

it is a good thing in place where the ground is low and moist, for it

will remain dry better than anything if it is properly rolled and well

made. Often it is not properly curved and drained, and Moss and weeds

collect at the sides, whereby your garden will seem unkempt and dull.

Indeed the garden paths are of supreme importance to the appearance of

your garden, as if they be left dirty, or covered with leaves or moss

they will spoil all the neat brightness of the flowers, and are apt to

look like an unbrushed coat on a man otherwise well dressed. This is

especially the case with broad paths and drives. How often one has

judged of a gardener by the appearance of his drive! The first glance

from the gate up the drive will give you a fair guess at the gardener

and his methods, and you can tell at once if he be a man of decent and

tidy habits, or a man to leave odd corners dirty and full of weeds. That

last man is just such an one as will burnish up his place on the eve of

a garden party, and give everything a lick and a promise, and will stand

by his greenhouses with an expression on his face of an holy cherub when

the visitors are being shown his stove plants. That man will be for ever

complaining of overwork and will wear a face as long as a fiddle if he

is asked pertinent questions of unweeded paths. “Such a work,” he will

say, “should be done by an extra boy. As for me, am I not by day and by

night protecting the peas from the birds, and the dahlias from earwigs,

and the melons from the ravages of slugs?” And you may know from this

that he is the type of man who loses grape scissors, and who leaves bast

about, and mislays his trowel, and neglects to give water to your

favourite plants, so that they wither and die. No. Look well that you

get a man who is fond of keeping himself clean, and he will keep his

paths clean, as is the case in a man I know who started a fruit garden

in the country. He, it was, who showed me his men working on a Saturday

afternoon at cleaning up the paths. And when I stood amazed at this he

took me into the shed where the tools were kept, and there I saw spades

shining like silver, and forks burnished wonderfully, and everything

very orderly. I clapped my hands, and looked round still in wonder, for

I marvelled to see such neatness and order in a place that is the shrine

of disorder—as tool sheds, potting sheds, and the like, which are a

medley of stick, earth, leafmould, old pricking-out boxes, tools, wire,

and other miscellaneous objects. And I marvelled still more to see

through the open door men at work—on the afternoon devoted to

holiday—picking leaves from the paths, and setting the place in order.

I said, “This is well done indeed.”

And he answered, that this was the secret of all good gardening, pride

and carefulness, and that now he had shown them the way his men were so

proud of their tool-shed that they brought admiring friends to see it of

a Sunday afternoon. Then I knew if there was money to be made growing

fruit in England (which there is) then this man would make it (which he

does).

Now this talk of paths gives one the idea that people do not here make

enough of their paths, as the Japanese do, for there they are skilled in

small gardens, and especially in landscape gardens on a tiny scale,

making little hills and woods, and views, lakes, streams, and rock

gardens in a space about the size of the average suburban garden. Then

they are very choice of trees, and value the turning colour of Maples,

and the droop of Wisteria, and the shape and blossom of Plum and Cherry

trees as fine garden ornaments, while we grow our wonderful lawns. Our

lawns, indeed, are remarked by all the world, and wherever you see the

words “English Gardens” abroad you will know that the people have made a

lawn and watered it, and are proud of its fat smooth surface of velvet.

But we make the mistake, I think, of growing forest trees on the edge of

our lawns and do not enough encourage the wonderful and beautiful

varieties of flowering shrubs that there be. Above all we seem to have a

passion for dank, black, lustreless Ivy, beloved only of cats, spiders

and snails. I have seen many beautiful walls of stone and brick utterly

destroyed and defaced by ill-growing Ivy, where the bare walls would

give a fine warm background to our flowers.

The great thing in paths is to make them a little secret, leading round

trees to a fresh view, and interlacing them in pretty and quaint ways,

but we, a conservative people, are ill-disposed to cut new paths except

in new gardens, and often leave badly designed paths for lack of a

little good courage. But we are learning by degrees, and I think the

abominations of gardening are leaving us, such as the monkey-puzzle tree

in the centre of a round bed, and the rows of half-moon beds cut by the

side of our lawns and filled with Geraniums and Lobelias, and the rustic

seat (horror!), and the rustic summer-house made of rough pieces of tree

limbs badly nailed together (horror of horrors!). Now we know more of

the way to make pergolas, and terraces, and how to build summer-houses,

and the curse of the Mid-Victorian gardening is come to an end with the

antimacassar, and the wax fruit under a glass case, and the sofa with

horsehair bolsters.

Of course, true gardening is the work and interest of a lifetime, like

the collecting of objects of Art, and as such inspires much the same

eager passion and healthy rivalry. Therefore let the setting of your

collection be as perfect as possible, and those paths leading to the

choice collections as fine as the velvet on which priceless enamels are

laid. Indeed enamel is a happy word, for what do your flowers do but

enamel the earth with their sweet colours, and in pattern, choice, and

variety, will surpass all things made by man alone.

And here I take my leave of paths, that great subject that should indeed

be a book to itself, for if a man sit down to think of paths he begins

to follow one himself, and, starting from the cradle, ends at the grave,

or, pursuing some path of history, comes into the broad high-road of all

learning, or looking up and observing the stars finds a train of thought

in following the path of a star. In a garden path, or from it, he may

meditate all these things with right and proper circumstance of mind,

for he has flowers at his feet full of the meat of good things, rare

remembrancers of history, and exquisite things on which to base a

philosophy; while, as for the stars, are they not the Daisies of the

Fields of Heaven?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

XIII

THE GARDENS OF THE DEAD

It is a beautiful custom that we put flowers on the graves of our dead,

and is more fraught with meaning than many know, for it is as a symbol

resurrection that they are so placed, inasmuch as the flower that seems

to perish perishes only for a while but comes up again as beautiful, and

though it die into the soil it reappears all fresh and lovely with no

sign of the soil to mar its beauty. But it is more beautiful to plant

the graves of those we love with flowers, as then we symbolise that they

are alive in our hearts and for ever flowering in our thoughts. And the

shadow of the church over them is but the shadow of the wing of sleep.

All our lives, said a French King, we are learning how to die; and when

the time comes we cannot help but think of that Garden of Sleep where we

must be placed along with other sleepers, there to wait.

In England it has long been a habit to plant the more melancholy trees

and shrubs in churchyards, as Yew trees, Myrtle, Bay, and the evergreen

Oak. In this way a sense of gloom was intended, much at variance with

the Christian doctrine that proclaims a victory over death. But instead

of this effect of sombreness the presence of these evergreens gives an

extraordinary air of quiet peace, of something perpetually alive though

at rest. Often and often I have taken my bread and cheese into a country

churchyard, and have sat down on the grass and leaned my back against

some venerable monument, and there lunched. I take it that this is no

disrespect to the dead, that the living should join company with them

even to the extent of spreading crumbs of bread over their resting

places. I take it that the smoke of a pipe is no sacriligeous sight in

the neighbourhood of tombs; for it is but a friendly spirit prompts it,

and no violation of the repose of these dead people. No; no more than

does the distant roar of the ship’s guns at practice disturb these quiet

souls.

In more than one churchyard there are the stocks remaining where

malefactors were placed, and so seated were they that all the good folks

passing in and out of church were forced to pass, almost to touch the

feet of the wrongdoers as they trod the path to the porch. One place I

know in particular where the stocks remain, and a goodly Yew tree having

grown thick and strong behind the seat forms a fine back to lean

against. From here I have surveyed the landscape over the tops of grey

old tombs, now all aslant over the heads of the sleepers. Here the

squire of 1640 rests facing the Cornfields once he cut and sowed and

stacked. There a lady, Christabel by name, faces the flagged walk to the

stone porch. There is grass over them now, and the merriest Daisies

grow, and Moss covers the laughing cherubims, and Lichen has crept into

the words that set forth their marvellous number of virtues. Spring

comes here just as it comes to other gardens, and the trees bud just as

daintily, and the young grass is every bit as green, and the first

Crocus lights his lamp, and the Dandelion flares as bravely with his

crown of gold.

[Illustration: A CHURCHYARD IN THE COTSWOLDS.]

There are these quaint quiet churchyards over the length and breadth of

England, where the dead lie so comfortably under the fresh English

grass. Some are full of flowers planted by loving hands; Roses grow

beside the church and shower their petals over the grey stones of the

tombs, and Spring flowers have been set in the grass to nod beside the

headstones sleepily. Others are bare and bleak, standing exposed to wind

and weather on a hillside, with stone walls about them, and a church

buffeted by every storm; yet these are sometimes most peaceful gardens,

and Ling and Gorse scent the air, and twisted Fir trees, and gnarled old

Pines, all leaning over, wind-bent, stand guard over the sleepers; bees

busy in the heather, lizards green as emeralds, and the bright

butterflies give the feeling of incessant life; they give that glorious

feeling that the great pulse still beats; that Nature all alive is yet

at one with the dead.

The gardener of these our dead, what a queer man is he! What a peculiar

profession he follows! To bury is but to plant the dead that they may

flower into that new life. And he is usually a humorous character, a man

of well-chosen words who surveys his garden of headstones and has a word

for each. He is no respecter of persons, since in the tomb all are

equal, and to see him at work preparing a fresh place for burial is to

think that the gravedigger’s work is no melancholy task. In the heat of

summer, half buried in the grave himself, he sings some old catch as he

shovels up the earth. “Poor little lamb,” he may say of a dead child;

“well, thee’ll bide here against our Lord wants ’e.”

I have seen such a man, his clothes brown with grave earth, a Daisy

between his lips (something to mumble, as he does not smoke on duty),

and watched his face as the lytchet gate clicks. His daughter, a flower

herself, is bringing his dinner, which he eats cheerfully leaning

against one side of the grave for support. This, with a thrush singing

somewhere, and the wheeze of the church clock, and the frivolous screams

of swifts make death a comfortable picture.

Here we have Nature triumphant, the Earth with her children asleep in

her lap. But a monstrosity has crept into our graveyards—God’s

Gardens—and in place of flowers with their joy, their symbolical message

of resurrection, one sees ghastly things of bead work and of wax,

enclosed in hideous glass cases with a mourning card in the centre of

them. This is not seemly nor decent in a place where the Earth reclaims

her children, where nothing ugly should be. It is within the reach of

everyone to buy fresh flowers and to renew those flowers from time to

time, and they should be left, if they are placed there, to die. Away

then with glass jam-jars filled with water, with bead wreaths, and all

ill-taste and hideous distortion of grief, and let us have our offerings

made as if to the living, for our dead live in our hearts, nor torture

them with horrid and distressing objects on their graves. I would have

every churchyard a garden kept by the pence of those who have laid their

dead there to rest; and I would have flowers and shrubs planted and

paths made, and seats placed, so that all should be kept fair and

bright.

In Switzerland, where I was once, I saw the most delightful graveyard I

have ever seen. The church stood on a bluff overlooking a river, a swift

running noisy river that sang songs of the mountains and of the big

fields and of the bustling towns, a dashing river alive with music,

loving the sound of its own voice. Above was this church and its yard,

and a little below, the village. The church was low-built and old, with

a wooden tower on which a cock stood guard; and it was whitewashed, and

toned by sun and rain, and a clock in the tower marked the passage of

time, solemnly, “tick-tock; tick-tock.” Along the south wall outside the

church was a bench, and a Wisteria over the bench, and a little jutting

roof over the Wisteria. This bench, time-worn as all else was time-worn

(as the wall was polished by several generations of backs), faced the

graveyard. If you sat on this bench you might take a glance at a man’s

life there in one long look, for there was a mill near by, and an Inn,

and a shoemaker’s, and a forge—the blacksmith was the undertaker, too,

any one could see from the fact that he was making a coffin. Besides

these you could see mountains covered with snow and wreathed in clouds;

great stretches of country, a wood, and the river. What more can there

be, saving only a sight of the sea?

But what struck me most forcibly was the appearance of the graveyard,

for each grave had flowers growing by it, and a little weeping willow

planted to hang over it, and there was something so pleasant to me in

this that I was filled with delight of the place as I sat there. It was

a real garden, so fresh and bright with flowers and with ugly

bead-wreaths as are so usual in foreign countries, and now, alas! in our

own. And it was so homely to think of the elders of that place who sat

looking at the graves and meditating—very likely—on the spot where they

themselves would lie. I remembered then, as I sat there, the description

of the graveyard in David Copperfield, and the words came almost exact

into my head.

“One Sunday night my mother reads to Peggotty and me in there, how

Lazarus was raised from the dead. And I am so frightened that they are

afterwards obliged to take me out of bed, and show me the quiet

churchyard out of the bedroom window, with the dead all lying in their

graves at rest, below the solemn moon.

“There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere as the grass of

that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so

quiet as its tombstones. The sheep are feeding there, when I kneel up,

early in the morning, in my little bed in a closet within my mother’s

room, to look out at it; and I see the red light shining on the

sun-dial, and think within myself, ‘Is the sun-dial glad, I wonder, that

it can tell the time again?’”

Even as I remembered those words I looked up and noticed a sun-dial on

the wall of the church just over my head, and, curiously enough, just

that peace that those words give to me seemed to come to me from the

sight of the sun-dial, and the repose of the scene before me.

It is good, I think, to meditate on these things, and all who garden,

who are, as it were, in touch with the soil, must sometimes let their

thoughts linger over the other gardens where the dead are, and where

Spring comes as blithely as in any other spot.

Although the gardens that are what are called “show-places,” tended and

nursed by a staff of men, do not bring one into such close contact with

earth as earth, still in the greater garden is a peace no other place

knows but the graveyard. This is no morbid thought, nor over

introspective, but, I think, makes me feel more sanely and not so

fearfully of death. In the same way do the poor keep their grave clothes

ready and neat in a drawer, with pennies sewn up in linen to put over

their tired eyes, and everything decent for the putting away of their

bodies. So does the wood of trees enclose them, and good and polished

wood in the shape of coffin-stools is there to bear them up. And I have

heard many talk of how they wished to lie facing the porch of the

church; and others who wished they might be near by the gate so that

folks passing in and out might remember them.

[Illustration: AUTUMN COLOUR AT BONCHURCH OLD CHURCH, NEAR VENTNOR.]

This may seem a subject not quite fitted to a book which is to tell of

the Charm of Gardens, and yet I am sure lovers of gardens will know just

what I mean. To think of and know of the peace and beauty of certain

graveyards is to gain consolation and quietude such as the knowledge and

thought of all beauty gives. What a wonderful thing it is that we can

paint the earth with flowers, set here crimson, and there orange, here

purple, and there blue; range our colours from white to cream, to deep

cream, to all the shades of all the colours, to deep impenetrable

purple, more black than black, like the dusky eyes of anemonies.

When it is night, and “the dead all lying in their graves at rest, below

the solemn moon,” the thousand thousand Daisies of the fields have

closed their eyes, and the Buttercups’ golden glaze is mellowed by the

moonlight, still there are flowers gay in the sunshine somewhere in the

world. Though the garden is chequered in the blue-green light and heavy

shadows, and the owls hoot in their melancholy voices, still there are

birds somewhere in the world singing. And though, across the way behind

the wall, white in the moonlight, lies the dark churchyard, and all is

very still there, still, I think, they, whose names are carved there on

the stones, are not in the dark, and do not know the damp and mouldy

earth, but are somewhere in some world more light and beautiful than

this.

The solemnity of this type of thought is seldom given to me by flowers;

it is more the breath of trees, and the deep places of a wood, that

gives one this feeling of hush and peace. Flowers are gay, stately,

exuberant, simple, but always joyous, as witness the pert questioning

faces of Pansies, and the languorous droop of Roses, the stately

propriety of Lilies, the romantic splendour of purple Clematis, and the

passionate beauty of the coloured Anemonies. In a garden are all moods,

from that given by a school of white Pinks, to the masterly exactitude

of the Red-Hot Poker, or the limpid and very virginal appearance of

Lavender. Youth itself comes in full blood with the blossom on fruit

trees; the slim elegance of childhood with the Narcissus and the

Daffodil. Daintiness herself is in Columbine; maidenly virtue is in the

hang-head Snowdrop. Zinnias have the melodious colours of the East;

Jasmine and Honeysuckle hold the spirit of the porch. Sweet Peas, all

laughing and chattering, are like a bevy of young girls; while the proud

Hyacinth, erect up his stem, his hair tight curled, his breath strong

and sweet, is to me like some hero of the days of William of Orange, a

hero in a curled full-bottomed wig. The Iris has the poetry of river

banks; the Sunflower peering over a cottage garden wall, spells rustic

ease. Fuschias I count very Victorian, like ladies in crinolines;

Geraniums also are prim and most polite. Wallflowers I place as

gipsy-like, a scent somehow of the wind on the road; while the

Snapdragons have a military spirit and grow in brightly uniformed

regiments. Carnations are courtiers, elegant, superbly dressed, yet with

a refinement all their own; and Larkspurs, like charity schools of

children, all dressed alike and out for a walk, on the tall stalk.

Primulas, deep-coloured or pale, I feel somehow to be the flowers of

memory; and Sweet Sultans are like Scots lords in foreign clothes. There

are a hundred others, all with some little fanciful meaning to those who

grow them, but all, I think, are full of joy; no flower is sad. It is

the trees, the voices whispering in whose leaves bring deeper thoughts.

There are those who say that happiness would come could we but find the

Blue Rose; and others that there are places one must need find like El

Dorado; and others that a magic charm will bring us the joy we desire.

They are all wrong. Happiness lies in the Rose at your hand, El Dorado

is at your door, the magic charm!—listen, there is a thrush singing.

THE END

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED, LONDON

------------------------------------------------------------------------

OTHER BEAUTIFUL BOOKS

ON FLOWERS & GARDENS

EACH CONTAINING FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

[Illustration]

THE FLOWERS AND

GARDENS OF JAPAN

Painted by ELLA DU CANE

Described by FLORENCE DU CANE

Containing 50 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square demy 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 20s. net (_by post_ 20s. 6d.)

NOTE.—Japan has often been called the Land of Flowers, and to judge from

the beautiful illustrations in this volume, it is aptly named. The

artist may be said to have given us a diary of the year’s flowers from

the opening of the first plum blossom to the falling of the last maple

leaf, and all are depicted in their natural surroundings. The

illustrations also include flowering trees amid old temples, charming

landscape gardens, flower feasts, and many natural scenes of great

beauty. The author, who has spent two floral seasons in the country, not

only gives an attractive description of the flowers as they appeal to

the eye of the foreigner, but has also collected and reproduced in the

book many of the native legends which show that sentiment and tradition

play a large part in the feelings with which the Japanese regard their

flowers.

“This ‘gardening’ book is one of the most fascinating that has ever been

published, and is worthy of its most fascinating title.”—_Morning Post._

“A charming volume, one of the most satisfactory of its kind that has

appeared for some time.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

“The book has the best account we have seen anywhere of the way in which

Japanese gardens, including the landscape garden, are planned, planted,

and made effective.”—_Outlook._

THE FLOWERS AND

GARDENS OF MADEIRA

Painted by ELLA DU CANE

Described by FLORENCE DU CANE

Containing 24 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square demy 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

NOTE.—From the title of this volume it will be seen that it is not

intended as a guide-book to the island. Its aim is to help those lovers

of flowers who are fortunate enough to spend a winter in Madeira to

appreciate the very varied vegetation of that flowery land. From the

author’s description of the never-ending succession of floral treasures,

it would appear to be perpetual summer in that favoured island, while

the so-called winter is almost the best time of year to see the gorgeous

creepers for which Madeira has long been famous.

The illustrations suggest warmth, sunshine, and flowers, and should

tempt many a wanderer to escape from the cold grey skies of an English

winter, and spend his time basking in the sun, and enjoying the

succession of flowering trees, shrubs, and plants which are gathered

together from every part of the New and Old World.

“A charming book.... The coloured illustrations are not only

instructive, but gems of their kind.... Should be in every

library.”—_Garden._

“No one knows better than Miss Du Cane how to paint

flowers.”—_Standard._

GARDENS OF ENGLAND

Painted by BEATRICE PARSONS

Described by E. T. COOK

Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square demy 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

NOTE.—“Gardens of England” does not follow the conventional lines of

recent works, but is descriptive of the modern development of the love

of picturesque horticulture. All who have a love of the garden and the

country in their hearts are aware of and welcome the intense interest

that has been slowly asserting itself in this fair land of ours, and

this, surely, is of physical advantage to the race. In this book the

sketches show the beauty of the modern rose garden when planned with

taste, the flood of colour that comes from rambling roses over the

pergola, and the brilliancy of the herbaceous border in summer. The text

follows the same lines, and, as indicating the character of the book,

there are chapters on “Cottage Gardens,” “Rosemary and Lavender,” “The

Rose Garden,” and the four seasons in the garden.

“A book of very great value.... Highly deserving of a place in the

country-house.... It is instinct with the spirit of the garden, and no

one could turn its leaves, or look at the pictures, without obtaining

many a hint that could be put to practical purpose.”—_Country Life._

“Miss Parson’s pictures are almost fragrant, so truly does she realise

the atmosphere of her subjects. The volume is one which the garden lover

... will find full of delight.”—_Truth._

ALPINE FLOWERS

AND GARDENS

Painted and Described by G. FLEMWELL

Containing 20 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square demy 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

NOTE.—This is an attempt to present, in word and picture, a broad and

general view of the Swiss Alpine flora in its wild home and in the

gardens established for it in the Alps. It is an attempt to break away

from the mass of specialist literature on the subject, and to depict,

not merely something of the floral wonders themselves, but something

also of the unique and fascinating atmosphere which surrounds

them—something which will appeal both to those who know the Alps and to

those who know only of them. To quote from the Preface contributed by

Mr. Henry Correvon, one of the greatest living authorities on Alpine

plants: “The Alpine flora has never yet been described or offered to the

public at the angle at which it is here presented to us. Here, then, is

a profoundly original work which lovers of beauty and truth cannot but

applaud.”

“Mr. Flemwell’s paintings will at once attract those who open this book,

for he has accomplished with singular skill the difficult task of making

the Alpine air breathe round Alpine flowers. And lovers of Alpland who

do not look for a specialist technical work on the flowers will be

pleased with his letterpress, which, though botanical lore is not

lacking, studies them from rather a new angle.”—_Times._

DUTCH BULBS

AND GARDENS

Painted by MIMA NIXON

Described by UNA SILBERRAD and SOPHIE LYALL

Containing 24 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square demy 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

NOTE.—Miss Una Silberrad has had exceptional facilities for studying

life in the Bulb Fields in and around Haarlem, which has been the centre

of the industry ever since its first introduction, and here sets down

for us the quaint customs of the growers, and their manner of life. Miss

Sophie Lyall treats of the Hyacinth; her chief authority being St.

Simon, a learned Frenchman of the eighteenth century. Garden-lovers will

appreciate his enthusiasm, and the loving exactness with which he

describes the life of the plant, its treatment, and the environment best

suited to its needs.

“Over the pictures in this book it is difficult not to wax enthusiastic,

for they are veritable triumphs of colour-printing.”—_Globe._

“Her pictures as a whole are as successful as the subject and the

letterpress in helping to endow this volume with a unique charm which no

flower- or garden-lover can fail to appreciate.”—_World._

BY THE POET LAUREATE

THE GARDEN

THAT I LOVE

Containing 16 full-page Illustrations in Colour by GEO. S. ELGOOD, R.I.

Square demy 8vo, cloth, gilt top.

Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

FROM THE AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THIS EDITION. “What!” said Lamia,

“_Another_ Illustrated Edition!”

“I believe so,” I replied, trying to look as meek as I could, but

betraying, I fear, that special kind of hesitation which proceeds less

from conscious guilt than from embarrassment.

“Have you consulted Veronica?” she asked. “If you have, I am sure she

must have informed you ‘The Garden that I Love’ will soon be as hard to

put up with as the Fiscal Question.”

Despite the opinions of Lamia and Veronica the publishers believe that

this edition will be welcomed by many who have read the book with

pleasure, but have never had an opportunity of seeing the beauty of the

Garden itself.

“The illustrations are worthy of the book, which is one of the most

charming books about a garden in the language.”—_Daily Chronicle._

“This sumptuous edition will enhance the appreciation even of this much

appreciated book.”—_Aberdeen Free Press._

BRITISH FLORAL

DECORATION

By R. F. FELTON, F.R.H.S., F.N.C.S. &c.

FLORIST TO KING EDWARD VII AND MANY COURTS OF EUROPE

Containing 26 full-page Illustrations (12 in Colour). Square demy 8vo,

cloth. Price 7s. 6d. net (_by post_, 7s. 11d.)

NOTE.—It has been felt for some time past that owing to the vast strides

which are yearly being made in Floral Decoration in Great Britain that

there was need for a book on so highly interesting a subject. The

publishers have been fortunate in securing the co-operation of Mr. R. F.

Felton to write such a book and to select and supervise the preparation

of the illustrations.

As Mr. Felton’s art brings him in touch with the Courts of Europe, he is

able to give examples of many important and interesting floral works

with which he has been professionally associated.

An important feature of the book is a complete and carefully compiled

list of the best varieties of all flowers to grow for cutting and

decorative purposes. The work has been largely subscribed by many

influential people in this country.

“Flowers play such a large part now in the decorations of the home that

the many useful hints given here will prove widely acceptable.”—_Evening

Standard._

“THE PASSION FOR FLOWERS.—Every phase of the subject has received

attention in these pages and the book provides many valuable hints.

Especially interesting are the chapters on certain flowers such as

Roses, Orchids, Tulips, Lilies and Violets, Sweet Peas, Daffodils,

&c.”—_Daily Mail._

KEW GARDENS

Painted by T. MOWER MARTIN, R.C.A.

Described by A. R. HOPE MONCRIEFF

Containing 24 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Large crown 8vo, cloth,

gilt top. Price 6s. net (_by post_, 6s. 4d.)

NOTE.—Kew Gardens contain what seems the completest botanical collection

in the world, handicapped as this is by a climate at the antipodes of

Eden and by a soil that owes less to Nature than to patient art. Before

being given up to public pleasure and instruction, this demesne was a

royal country seat, especially favoured by George III in days when it

would be almost as rural as now is Osborne or Sandringham. This homely

king had two houses here, and began to build a more pretentious palace,

a design cut short by his infirmities, but for which Kew might have

usurped the place of Windsor. For nearly a century it had a close

connection with the Royal Family, as the author illustrates in his story

of the village and the gardens, while the artist has found most

effective subjects in the rich vegetation gathered into this enclosure

and in the relics of its former state.

“Mr. Martin’s drawings add much to the value of this fascinating

book.”—_T.P.’s Weekly._

“Mr. Martin’s pictures are charming.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

[Illustration]

PUBLISHED BY ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s note:

Headings and subheadings in the Kalendarium, pages 108-148, have been

regularised.

Variations in spelling in the Kalendarium have been retained.

Illustration captions have been regularised.

Page 21, full stop inserted after ‘light,’ “in a fluster of bright

light.”

Page 38, double quote inserted after ‘madam,’ “this is why, madam,” I

could”

Page 55, full stop inserted after ‘Head,’ “from some once lovely Head.”

Page 62, comma inserted after ‘led,’ “me, willing to be led,”

Page 62, comma inserted after ‘thread,’ “Though by a slender thread,”

Page 76, ‘Falerian’ changed to ‘Falernian,’ “sat drinking Falernian wine

poured”

Page 82, ‘glimmmering’ changed to ‘glimmering,’ “glimmering amidst their

greenery”

Page 102, ‘Orgilly’ changed to ‘or Gilly,’ “Clove Pink, or Gilly-flower,

a variety”

Page 116, ‘Minabile’ changed to ‘Mirabile,’ “Flos Africanus, Mirabile

Peruvian”

Page 126, ‘alter’ changed to ‘after,’ “Ranunculus’s after rain (if it

come”

Page 129, ‘Paterre’ changed to ‘Parterre,’ “In the Parterre, and Flower”

Page 133, ‘Michaemas’ changed to ‘Michaelmas,’ “Malacoton, which lasts

till Michaelmas”

Page 134, ‘Candi-tufts’ changed to ‘Candy-tufts,’ “Larks-heel,

Candy-tufts, Iron-colour’d”

Page 139, ‘Cand-tufts’ changed to ‘Candy-tufts,’ “Delphinium, Nigella,

Candy-tufts”

Page 144, comma inserted after ‘Cabbages,’ “Parsneps, Turneps, Cabbages,

Cauly-flowers”

Page 151, colon struck after ‘GARDENS,’ “TOWN GARDENS”

Page 163, ‘that’ changed to ‘than,’ “more beautiful than the Almond

tree”

Page 176, ‘wheelrights’ changed to ‘wheelwright’s,’ “into the

wheelwright’s saw-pit”

Page 186, ‘Aglantine’ changed to ‘Eglantine,’ “was crowned with

Eglantine”

Page 206, full stop inserted after ‘grass,’ “crickets in the grass. But

in”

Page 212, ‘er’ changed to ‘’er,’ “but what ’er won’t rain”

Page 222, ‘vitual’ changed to ‘ritual,’ “the exact form of ritual

required”

Page 232, ‘antimaccassar’ changed to ‘antimacassar,’ “end with the

antimacassar, and”

Ad page 3, ‘Full-page’ changed to ‘full-page,’ “Containing 16 full-page

Illustrations”

Ad page 3, comma inserted after ‘Lamia,’ ““What!” said Lamia,”

End of Project Gutenberg's The Charm of Gardens, by Dion Clayton Calthrop

When the toy had once taken Jupiter in the head to enter into a state of